As in incoming first-year, I think I speak for many people when I say that NY firms should absolutely rethink the way that they pay us (even if just junior associates). The money isn't nearly as important as being able to hang around for a few years gaining experience. If it saves first-years, second-years, and third-years jobs, DO IT.

woot.

#2, I agree. Also, please cut or fire your "Associates" (that you bill out as attorneys at many NYC firms) who are not even members of the bar. Just because someone graduated from Yale Law doesn't mean they're worth $450/hour. A lot of bumbling idiots have come out of T14 and Tier 1 schools (not to say the other tiers don't have their fair share as well).

I love how the guy who was advocating changes in pay structures cited Wolf Block as an innovator in this area. It's hilarious b/c directly below the link for that article is a headline for Wolf Block being close to dissolution. It seems to me that the only firms that are really rethinking their pay structures are the ones that are in serious trouble...

2, you are free to offer to volunteer for a firm in lieu of sitting at home unemployed, in order to hang around and get experience. Money is not important, right.

Or you can volunteer at a public interest gig or start your own non-profit.

Maybe we can get FEC to finally investigate Fox News as "in kind" donations to the Republican Party.

Has FEC gotten new nominees yet?

Can you ask to look at a firm's balance sheet before accepting an offer?

8 - That would be proper "due diligence"...seems no one is exercising proper business judgments these days.

6,

If I came from a wealthy family, perhaps I would volunteer or go directly into public interest. But I'm not.

Gaining some experience at a large firm would allow me to 1) pay off debt, and 2) gain financial stability and confidence to go off on my own. Or stay there. Who knows.....

But when a 3L or first year gets laid off, their employment options are severely limited, especially in this economy. So my point was, the firms should be doing whatever it takes to preserve jobs, and I am taking the position that pay ought to be changed.

I mean, why are firms paying all that money to 1st and 2nd year associates in transactional departments that are sitting around waiting for work? I think they'd rather be paid less than live in fear of being laid off.

does anyone actually trust these fat, stupid fuck partners to handle merit pay?

firms that led the market in freezing salaries also led the market in first year layoffs.

i don't trust that these greedy retards will protect the first years just because they save money on salaries.

10, you seem to misunderstand.
Your point was that when junior associates get fired, the biggest hit is that they don't get to hang around and gain experience.

My point is that when someone is _already_ unemployed and worried about not getting experience, that person is free to volunteer or work on his own for free. There's your experience.

I was hit by a mass first year layoff. My life and career are in tatters. My options are suicide and leave the country forever.

Thank you, "well diversified firm" for fooling me into taking your offer and then fucking me for life.

11 nailed it.

14, wow, who knew that a law firm that only has big-spending clients who can afford its high rates, in a time when every other firm is trying to compete for those same clients, turned out to be not well diversified.

Next thing you know, you're going to tell me that Saks and other high-priced retailers don't have a well diversified customer base either.

13, the kind of experience you get doing pro bono is not give you the kind of experience you need to do work that pays in the future.

like it's just that easy asshole. you're probably a partner at one of these mass layoff firms.

DLA Piper is cutting most partners pay by about one-eighth today.

Just another story that ATL missed. . . . .

the firms could save money by throwing out the MPs and OMPs whose furns are in shambles because like greedy morons they overexpanded into cyclical practices without sufficiently growing the countercyclical groups.

no, it is not okay to woo, lie to, then fire masses of first years just because you don't know how to diversify your firm.

17, what's the kind of work that pays in the future? Big firm work, like securitization? Financial products?
Please tell us what are the booming legal fields in 2013.

Uh oh. Peeps are getting mad around here. Thank goodness law students are lazy, or else there could be a revolution someday.

13, 10 is right.

Realistically, it is not possible to get solid, marketable experience practicing corporate law by volunteering or striking out on your own. That's just a bunch of Kool-Aid.

-Not 10

Why is no one commenting on the excessive, unnecessary, and glaringly incorrect use of dashes?

SCROTUS. Heh. Wait, is that "SCOTUS"? My bad.

22, you are free to volunteer at the law firm by offering to work for their paying clients for free.

I'm nailing 11.

25, if everyone does that, than won't salaries fall to 0?

stupid fuck, die.

Give me back that fillet-o-fish!
Give me back that fish...
Give me back that fillet-o-fish!!
Give me back that fish!

"payed"

27, welcome to the free market. But as it turns out, in most free market industries, competition doesn't lead to zero prices.

16, are you really that stupid that you can't look at a firms practice areas and see that the cyclical practice groups are huge and well developed, and the countercyclical ones are tiny and underdeveloped.

See, WEIL seems to be getting plenty of work even though all of their work comes from high end clients. This is because Weil's leaders were smart enough to diversify their damn firm.

Now, kindly stop talking out of your ass and shut the fuck up.

The problem with merit pay is that it reduces leverage. In good times, lockstep base + bonus means that for the most part, once an associate has covered his costs, every hour billed is pure profit. I'd actually prefer a comp structure that paid some token base ($25K/yr, say) plus 20% of my first 1,000 collected billable hours, plus 33% of collected billables above that. That would take away the firm's need to squeeze every dollar of revenue out of me, and would reduce the pressure on my job in bad times. But in a year in which I billed 2500 hours at $500/hr, the firm wouldn't be able to lockstep my pay in the name of "collegiality."

-- Deferred 3L

Been there, done that, 22. Following the dot.com bust. That's how I know junior folks can't realistically gain experience that way.

But feel free to go try it yourself, since you seem to be fond of Kool-Aid.

2 & 6 - You share the same flawed assumption. Even if firms changed their pay scale, or associates started volunteering, that doesn't solve the problem: there simply isn't a lot of work to be done in a lot of the corporate fields. You can't get experience if there isn't a client to work for.

33, if firms won't even take your labor for free, I think the market is trying to tell you how much your sad little degree and legal potential are worth.

And thanks for the pointer, but I have a paying job.

WOW that Circa add is NSFW. I like it.

32 - firms would never do that, at least not until you're in your 3rd or 4th year, because all that would happen is that 1st and 2nd year idiots (which describes 95% of 1st and 2nd year attorneys) would have a huge (greater than they do now) incentive to overbill their time and tick off clients. Partners would waste huge amounts of time readjusting associate hours.

More Importantly, where is the auction for the Dreier LLP Furniture? Daddy needs a new couch!

I will laugh when 35's well diversified toilet firm lays him off.

http://www.bkhco.com/index.htm

Paid is misspelled as "payed."

On the merit pay thing, you can't trust them. I know. I worked at a firm where that was the case and there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they determined your worth. And the thing is that a lot of these people are passive aggressive vindictive fucks who will judge you harshly for showing any kind of emotion--i.e., we are drones who must work and ask no questions--but they would never admit that their harshness is a childish emotional response due in large part to fragile egos. Anyway, I could talk about this for hours, but, yes, those greedy fucks cannot be trusted. But I cherish watching them and their wa wa waing in reaction to themselves getting fucked. Gotta love the evil empires known as Biglaw.

On the merit pay thing, you can't trust them. I know. I worked at a firm where that was the case and there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they determined your worth. And the thing is that a lot of these people are passive aggressive vindictive fucks who will judge you harshly for showing any kind of emotion--i.e., we are drones who must work and ask no questions--but they would never admit that their harshness is a childish emotional response due in large part to fragile egos. Anyway, I could talk about this for hours, but, yes, those greedy fucks cannot be trusted. But I cherish watching them and their wa wa waing in reaction to themselves getting fucked. Gotta love the evil empires known as Biglaw.

On the merit pay thing, you can't trust them. I know. I worked at a firm where that was the case and there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they determined your worth. And the thing is that a lot of these people are passive aggressive vindictive fucks who will judge you harshly for showing any kind of emotion--i.e., we are drones who must work and ask no questions--but they would never admit that their harshness is a childish emotional response due in large part to fragile egos. Anyway, I could talk about this for hours, but, yes, those greedy fucks cannot be trusted. But I cherish watching them and their wa wa waing in reaction to themselves getting fucked. Gotta love the evil empires known as Biglaw.

On the merit pay thing, you can't trust them. I know. I worked at a firm where that was the case and there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they determined your worth. And the thing is that a lot of these people are passive aggressive vindictive fucks who will judge you harshly for showing any kind of emotion--i.e., we are drones who must work and ask no questions--but they would never admit that their harshness is a childish emotional response due in large part to fragile egos. Anyway, I could talk about this for hours, but, yes, those greedy fucks cannot be trusted. But I cherish watching them and their wa wa waing in reaction to themselves getting fucked. Gotta love the evil empires known as Biglaw.

On the merit pay thing, you can't trust them. I know. I worked at a firm where that was the case and there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they determined your worth. And the thing is that a lot of these people are passive aggressive vindictive fucks who will judge you harshly for showing any kind of emotion--i.e., we are drones who must work and ask no questions--but they would never admit that their harshness is a childish emotional response due in large part to fragile egos. Anyway, I could talk about this for hours, but, yes, those greedy fucks cannot be trusted. But I cherish watching them and their wa wa waing in reaction to themselves getting fucked. Gotta love the evil empires known as Biglaw.

before lambasting 42-46, yes, i'm impatient and technically challenged.......sorry!!!!

Skadden recently laid off staff workers inlcuding legal assisants, staff attorneys, and secretaries. You all may recall that Skadden also set the industry standard for the highest bonus this past December while our economy was in turmoil. Now many of us are losing sleep and jobless just so that the partners and associates can add those bonus dollars to their already inflated bank accounts. Corporate greed at its best! Another AIG..